Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, July 24, 2020

07/24 Links Pt1: Caroline Glick: Stability for our enemies; Oslo revisited; Head of PA’s Mission to UK Lies and Distorts 1948 History; Europe’s NGO cold war to ‘mitigate pro-Israel voices’

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Stability for our enemies

Since the 1990s, the dominant view in Israel's national security community has been that Israel's top priority in relation to the Palestinians is to maintain the stability of their leadership. This is the case in relation to both the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria and the Hamas regime in Gaza.

The rationale behind this view is that despite their hostility, if the regimes lose control, things will be worse, not better for Israel. Israel will have to take over, at great cost in lives and international stature. In other words, it's either Fatah and Hamas or the Israel Defense Forces. And Israel's security establishment prefers the former.

To achieve the goal of preserving the Fatah regime, Israel's generals and their think tank colleagues have long insisted the government ensure its financial viability. In practice, this has required Israel to collect customs and other indirect taxes for the PA and transfer the funds, with no strings attached to the PA every month. The fact that the PA has always used large portions of its budget to finance terrorism was of little consequence to the generals and their colleagues.

In the case of Hamas-controlled Gaza, preserving the terrorist regime has required Israel to permit the PA to transfer funds to its employees in Gaza, even though by paying their salaries the PA effectively enabled Hamas to devote its resources solely to waging its war against Israel. Preserving Hamas has also involved Israel allowing Qatar to send truckloads of cash to Gaza to keep Hamas's terror state afloat.

Safe in power – thanks to Israel – Fatah has been free to devote its energies waging its multidimensional war against Israel. It funds terrorists – with the tax arrears Israel collects for it. It incites terror on its media organs – again paid for by the taxes Israel transfers. It pays its security forces and indoctrinates its members to seek Israel's destruction. It engages in large-scale theft of government lands and illegal construction in Judea and Samaria to choke off Jewish communities. And the Fatah-PA wages diplomatic war against Israel at the UN, in the world capitals, and increasingly at the International Criminal Court.

Safe in power in Gaza, Hamas builds up its forces. It develops collaborative ties with Hezbollah and the Houthis and strengthens its client relationship with both Iran and Turkey. And every so often, it opens another missile offensive against aimed at killing and terrorizing Israeli civilians.

Whether they like it or not, the denizens of Hamastan and Fatahland alike have no choice other than to live under the jackboot of their regimes. Thanks to Israel – and its stability minded security experts – they have no chance of competing for power or rebelling.

Oslo revisited

The days of the Oslo Accords were dark days for Israel. Fortunately, the public put a stop to the Oslo trend before it endangered the very fabric of the State of Israel.

As Tisha B'Av rolls closer, it behooves us to ponder how Israel managed to extricate itself from the trap laid for her in the 1990’s by the infamous Yasser Arafat and by the “liberation” terror organization that he led.

The Oslo Accords cost us over one thousand casualties, but the dangerous veering toward the sea, eventually slowed. Nowadays we are discussing sovereignty – not “victims of peace”. There is plenty of room for improvement in our diplomatic discourse even today. But everything is relative.

In contrast, remember what happened in the darkest days the Jewish people ever experienced, ever – in Nazi Europe. You remember the famous poem, by a German Lutheran leader called Martin Niemöller, about being passive and keeping silent:

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

The Oslo Accords, horrific as they were and still are, never reached anywhere near the point Europe reached during Nazi days. Why? Not because Palestinian Arab leaders are lacking in antisemitism. They are not. The central reason was that during Hitler’s day, there was no State of Israel. But there was also another reason. The second reason was that prominent people in Nazi Germany simply did not do very much about it, when ugly things began to happen in their country.

In Israel however, way before things slid into a complete abyss, people did things. People stood up and said, this is not cool. Not just the downtrodden, not just the persecuted, stood up and banged on the national table. Prominent people stood up and said this – not many of them, but enough of them.

Head of PA’s Mission to UK Lies and Distorts 1948 History

However, the op-ed in The Times (paywall) by Sammy Stein, co-chair of Glasgow Friends of Israel, he’s referring to doesn’t even allude to the Zomlot family’s dislocation during the Arab-Israeli war, and doesn’t accuse Palestinians of lying about their flight during that time.

In other words, Zomlot’s accusation — that Stein accused Zomlot of lying, is itself a lie.

Rather, Stein’s piece largely focuses on what he refers to as the “politicised hijacking of a term Nakba,” and characterizes “The Nakba” as self-inflicted by the Arab leaders who launched a war of annihilation against Israel instead of accepting partition.

Zomlot continues to mislead in a subsequent paragraph:
Palestinian refugees, scholars everywhere, as well as a growing number of Israeli historians, have all attested to the reality of al-Nakba (the “Catastrophe”), when hundreds of towns were depopulated, looted and destroyed. Overall, more than half the population of Palestine was expelled. This is what Mr Stein refers to as “Israel’s success”

First, it’s not true that all of the refugees were expelled. Most fled due to orders from Arab military and political leaders, or of their own accord — to escape the war. More deceiving, however, is Zomlot’s claim that Stein referred to the Palestinian exodus as an Israeli “success.”

Here are the relevant paragraphs from Stein’s op-ed, where he refers to Israeli success:
The politicised hijacking of a term Nakba which bemoaned the absence of pan-Arab unity and castigated Arabs for their failings, into a term of abuse against Israel is a calculated and continuous act of deception, designed to absolve Arab states of blame and condemn Israel for successfully defending itself against attack.
…
Today Palestinians and their apologists worldwide might stop to consider these realities and face up to the fact that Nakba describes their failure, not Israel’s success.

It’s clear that Stein is referring to Israel’s survival in the Arab war as an Israeli “success” — not the flight of Palestinian refugees.

To see more deceit from Zomlont, read this post on his recent appearance on BBC’s “Hardtalk.”

Cartoon of the Day: The problem with Jews

Continuing with my recaptioning of single panel cartoons….

I think that this is a bit deeper than it looks.

The children’s TV series VeggieTales once adopted the Book of Esther for children.

The video, “Esther: The Girl Who Became Queen,” never mentions Jews.

This show is available on an Iranian streaming service, and this upset the Iranian Revolutionary Guard :

On July 15^th, Iran’s Fars News Agency, which is linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), published an article stating that “a Zionist hero has infiltrated our streaming services.” The author was referring to the VeggieTales movie “Esther: The Girl Who Became Queen.”

The animated film is broadcast both on Iranian streaming service Filimo and through the streaming outlets of an organization directly linked to Supreme Leader Khamenei. Despite it’s connections to Khamenei and his government, the journalist calls out VeggieTales’ representation of Esther for painting Persians as the antagonists. The journalist interprets the film’s presentation of Haman as a statement about Iran.

“This is a historical fabrication that can easily mold the mind of a child,” writes the journalist. “Such a mind would be more amenable toward accepting Zionist conceptions, Judaism, and occupation of the land of Palestine.”

As an aside, I was going to make a joke about how VeggieTales chose to represent Esther as the famous Talmudic interpretation (Megillah 13a) that says that Esther was green (“yerakroket.”) But Wikipedia, of all places, has a really interesting explanation of that Gemara:

To the Rabbis, Esther was one of the most beautiful women ever created.^[2] Another source says Esther was yerakroket, often translated as "greenish";^[3] but as classical Greek used the word chloros ("green") to refer to honey-like yellow and to human skin as well as what we call green,^[4] the rabbis who lived in a Greek-influenced context may have intended that Esther's skin was a normal shade of yellow.

This site goes through the various types of “green” mentioned in the Talmud and refers to a commentary by the 11th century Rabbeinu Chananel who says that “yarok” could refer to the color of an egg-yolk or to reddish-gold, and concludes that that Esther, described as “yerakoroket,” was a blonde. But gold colored skin could easily be considered beautiful as well.

Elder gets results! CNN changes offensive paragraph

Yesterday I tweeted and posted about an offensive paragraph in this CNN article:

Since then, CNN changed the paragraph and added links:

An estimated 6 million Jewish people were killed in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Also killed were hundreds of thousands of Roma people and people with mental or physical disabilities.

“Murdered” would be a better and more accurate term than “killed,” although this is much better than the passive “died.”

It is still inaccurate – CNN does not know the difference between concentration camps and extermination camps, and does not account for the huge number of Jews that were killed outside those camps.

But, hey, baby steps. Why assume one of the most influential news sources should get it right the second time?

(h/t Mark B)

Head of largest Muslim UK charity quits after antisemitic, pro-terror posts uncovered

The Times of London revealed that a leader of Britain’s largest Muslim charity had posted a string of antisemitic and pro-Hamas posts on Facebook.

The revelation forced Heshmat Khalifa, a trustee and director of Islamic Relief Worldwide, to step down.

In Facebook posts he referred to Jews as the “grandchildren of monkeys and pigs” and called Egypt’s president a “Zionist pimp.”

Islamic Relief's £570 million income over the past five years included contributions from the United Nations, the European Commission and the British taxpayer.

Khalifa wrote on social media that Hamas is “the purest resistance movement in modern history”. He added that declaring its armed wing a terrorist organisation was a “shameful disgrace to all Muslims.”

Many of his antisemitic insults were aimed at Egypt's president Al Sisi. Khalifa called the Muslim president a “pimp son of the Jews”, a “Zionist pig”, a “Zionist traitor” and a “Zionist criminal”.

Khalifa deleted the posts after the Times informed him that they would be writing about them.

Like most antisemites nowadays, he denied he was a Jew-hater. He told The Times that his comments were “my expressions of frustration with the political regime, rather than beliefs that I hold”. He said: “I did not intend to insult the Jewish community and neither do I hold views which are antisemitic. I have dedicated much of my life’s work to promoting tolerance and freedom of religion and beliefs.”

How that translates to calling Jews the descendants of apes and pigs is unclear.

The British-based Muslims Against Antisemitism denounced the posts, calling them "appalling antisemitism" and saying "These precise comments are more widespread than thought, and we will continue to work to reduce antisemitism, inspire Muslims to stand up against it, and support those who do."

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07/23 Links Pt2: Jewish Actor Josh Malina Shames Pop Star Madonna for Promoting Antisemite Louis Farrakhan; The Corbynites have lied with impunity - now they face the legal consequences

From Ian:

Jewish Actor Josh Malina Shames Pop Star Madonna for Promoting Antisemite Louis Farrakhan

Actor Josh Malina criticized on Thursday pop legend Madonna for promoting notorious antisemite and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

“The little red string you wear doesn’t count for shit when you amplify the voice of an antisemite, @Madonna,” tweeted Malina, who is Jewish and is best known for his roles on “The West Wing” and “Scandal.”

The little red string you wear doesn’t count for shit when you amplify the voice of an antisemite, @Madonna. https://t.co/Hh6OotF58P
— (((Josh Malina))) (@JoshMalina) July 23, 2020

The “little red string” Malina referred to is something worn on the wrist by followers of Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism, for protection from the “evil eye.” Madonna has been a proponent of studying Kabbalah in the past.

Earlier this month, the “Queen of Pop” posted on Instagram a trailer for a Fourth of July address given by Farrakhan, in which he called Jews “Satan” and promoted an anti-Israel conspiracy theory.

Despite receiving backlash for sharing the trailer and requests for it to be removed, Madonna has yet to delete the clip from her Instagram page.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center said the “Material Girl” singer “owes Jewish people an apology and explanation why she chose to lend her platform” to Farrakhan.

More recently on Instagram, Madonna voiced solidarity with “Palestine.”

Caroline Glick: The Predicament of Liberal American Jews

In under a week, two events happened at The New York Times—the arbiter of liberal news and opinion—which highlight the growing precariousness of the American Jewish community's position in the Democratic Party.

On July 8, the Times published an op-ed by Peter Beinart, a far-left American Jewish writer and self-anointed spokesperson for liberal Jewish opinion on Israel.

Beinart's article, entitled, "I no longer believe in a Jewish state," argued that Israel no longer has a right to exist. It should be destroyed and replaced by a non-Jewish state. Beinart ended his article by urging American Jews to get over their Holocaust-induced fear of genocide and join him in his rejection of Jewish national rights.

To be clear, Beinart's position is anti-Semitic.

The Obama administration adopted the definition of anti-Semitism published in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). IHRA's definition includes a list of common manifestations of anti-Jewish bigotry. Among those manifestations are, "Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of the State of Israel is a racist endeavor."

Beinart's declaration that he has joined the jackals came as no surprise to those who had been paying attention. For the past decade, Beinart has been arguing that Israel's right to exist is contingent on its willingness to satisfy his American Jewish preferences. In his Times article, Beinart proclaimed that Israel is not delivering the goods. So as far as he is concerned, Israel needs to stop existing.

Beinart's advocacy of Israel's demise is significant not so much for what it says about American Jewish views of Israel (80 percent of American Jews support Israel and two-thirds feel an emotional attachment to the Jewish state), but for what it says about the political Left's view of Israel—and of Jews.

This is the case because for the better part of the past decade, Beinart has served as a weathervane of leftist opinion on Israel and Jews, and as a fig leaf for leftist anti-Semitism.

From today's @nypost. Good for the @ZOA_National. pic.twitter.com/Pffna6WqMm
— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) July 23, 2020

American Jewry in Transition? How Attitudes toward Israel May Be Shifting

The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs has been researching the attitudes of Jewish-Americans for the past two years. We may now be seeing a trend in Jewish-American attitudes that represents a narrower definition of "support" for Israel.

Our latest series of data shows moderately strong but less than enthusiastic overall support for Israel. We found mild-moderate but clear expressions of "sympathy" for the Palestinians.

There is deep concern over anti-Semitism, dissociated from concern over anti-Israel attitudes. At the same time, there is a lack of serious concern for anti-Semitism from the left-progressive elements of society.

Despite some concerns, there is a willingness to associate with possibly anti-Israel movements. Overall, there is a general endorsement of issues associated with liberal or progressive thinking.

Israel-related issues are not a deciding or "make or break" factor in the voting behavior of a significant portion of our Jewish-American sample.

There is considerable support for Black Lives Matter protests, despite awareness and concern that the BLM movement may lead to an increase in anti-Israel attitudes.

However, we found a marked reduction for being personally willing to support "affirmative action"-type initiatives. We also found a less marked reduction in support for defunding police and paying reparations to Black-American institutions.

At the end of an article about a concentration camp guard being convicted in Germany of of thousands of counts of being an accessory to murder, CNN gives an awful summary of historical background of the Holocaust:

It is believed that approximately 6 million Jewish people died in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Also killed were hundreds of thousands of Roma people and people with mental or physical disabilities.

"It is believed" that 6 million Jews were murdered?

Six million were not killed in concentration or death camps; many thousands were shot, or gassed to death in vans, or otherwise murdered. But "it is believed" that they "died?" And CNN isn't sure about the number 6 million?

And the Jews are "believed" to have died - they might be playing pinochle somewhere - but the Roma and disabled were "killed."

If CNN can't get a basic sentence about the Holocaust right, what can you trust them for?

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Successful Syrian Interceptions Of IAF Listed With UFO, Bigfoot Sightings (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

F-15E Damascus, July 23 - Cryptozoologists and other enthusiasts of paranormal phenomena have begun including Assad regime claims of thwarted Israeli airborne operations in their logs of unconfirmed-but-definitely-real incidents, opening a new realm in which the credulous can enjoy the sense of superiority and insider status born of knowing something most other people are too closed-minded to accept.

Conspiracy-theory-minded groups devoted to documenting sightings of phenomena and entities for which scientists and mainstream society find insufficient or uncompelling evidence have decided to add to their record-keeping the cases in which Syrian air defense officials say they have shot down or driven away Israeli aircraft or missiles, amid ongoing Israeli efforts to interdict the movement of strategic weapons from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon through Syrian territory.

"I'm excited about this addition," gushed Gimlin Patterson, a cryptozoology documentary filmmaker. "It's been ages since our community has had something really, genuinely new to discuss. Most of our research involves stories or sightings that are decades, sometimes centuries old: the Loch Ness Monster, Yeti, Sasquatch, Area 51 aliens, chupacabras, ghosts, you know. Sometimes we get the novelty of an old map that purports to show Chinese knowledge of the Americans before the Europeans got there. But the Syria interception accounts are a breath of fresh air. And as a bonus, so many of us are already primed to believe in conspiracy theories and secret cabals that suppress the truth, so this new collection of claims fits nicely into the antisemitic sensibilities so many of us already bring to the table."

"I'm more of an aliens-built-the-pyramids kind of gal," added Roz Well, hostess of the podcast What They Won't Tell You. "But the discovery that Syria has actually been shooting down Israeli aircraft and missiles, and that mainstream media, when they even cover the incidents, only parrot Israeli propaganda, really resonates. Outfits that shill for governments, and governments that try to suppress the truth, will lie about anything, not just ignore all the evidence that aliens built all the ancient pyramids around the world - Mayan, Egyptian, or wherever."

"The key is to look for any shred of fact that supports the conclusion you've already reached - and the antisemites among us have lots of practice at that - and then," she continued, "either take anything that contradicts the conclusion and ignore, downplay, or dismiss it as fake, or as evidence of the cover-up. It's such a good thing that Bashar Assad, contrary to what the lamestream press will tell you, is really the reincarnation of Sennacherib, because that's a real humanitarian."

07/23 Links Pt1: Israel demolished Hebron car dealership, not 'COVID-19 center'; Dutch officials pictured with terrorist involved in 17-year-old's death

From Ian:

Israel demolished Hebron car dealership, not 'COVID-19 center'

An unlicensed structure demolished earlier this week by the Israeli authorities near Hebron was not being planned as a center for coronavirus tests, but as a private car dealership business.

A Palestinian car dealer who was planning to open a business at the site, located at the entrance to Hebron, claimed after the demolition that the structure was intended to serve as a “center for conducting coronavirus tests” on Palestinian workers upon their return from Israel.

The structure was being built on a plot of land located in Area C, which is exclusively controlled by Israel.

Civil Administration inspectors, who first noticed the structure on July 12, issued an order banning the continuation of the work. The car dealer, however, ignored the warning.

Palestinians working at the site told the inspectors that they were building a car exhibition for a Palestinian businessman from Hebron. The inspectors also spotted a sign with the name of the new car dealership business.

On July 21, Civil Administration bulldozers arrived at the site and demolished the illegally built structure. (h/t Charlie in NY)

PMW: The birth and spread of a new anti-Israel libel: The claim that Israel destroyed a COVID-19 testing center in Hebron is false!

Whether you attribute the quote to Mark Twain, Winston Churchill or Jonathan Swift, the fact is that “A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on.” This age old adage took on new life when a lie invented by Palestinian sources spread like wild fire around the globe.

In recent days, Israel destroyed a structure (pictured below) erected without a building permit. The structure, according to the original story of its owner, “was built to establish an exhibition hall for cars.”

Manipulating sensitivity to the global pandemic, Palestinian sources, and their eager supporters, spread the libel that Israel had deliberately destroyed a COVID-19 testing center on the outskirts of Hebron, a hotspot for COVID-19 cases. To strengthen the libel, the following computer graphic image was disseminated with the lie that this was the structure that Israel destroyed:

Only after Israeli authorities issued a destruction order for the structure, did the Mayor of Hebron, Tayseer Abu Sneina, a released terrorist convicted for the murder of 6 people (3 Israelis, 2 Americans and a Canadian), suddenly inform the owner, that he was working with the PA Ministry of Health and with the Governor of the Hebron District, to turn the structure in to a COVID-19 testing and isolation center:
“We inform you that the Hebron Municipality is in contact with the Ministry of Health, and with the Honorable Governor of the Hebron District, regarding the use of the building located on the plot of land, numbered (90) No. Plot (34417) as a medical examination and isolation center for those coming to Hebron.”

The Israeli Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) responded to the libel, via its Facebook page, in both Arabic and English, making clear that the claim had no validity. Significantly, COGAT added that no request had been submitted to either the Israeli Authorities, the Palestinian Authority or international organizations working in the area to build a COVID-19 testing center.

Dutch officials pictured with terrorist involved in 17-year-old's death

Dutch civil servants took a picture with one of the terrorists charged with killing 17-year-old Rina Schnerb, The Jerusalem Post has learned, despite their government’s denial that they knew of any connection between organizations they fund and terrorist groups.

The photograph from 2017, which can be found on the Netherlands Representative Office in Ramallah’s Facebook page, features Dutch officials, including Head of Cooperation in Ramallah Henny de Vries, and leaders of the Palestinian-run organization Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), to which the Dutch representative in Ramallah pledged nearly $20 million in 2013-2021.

Among the UAWC officials in the photo, though not named in the Facebook post, is Abdul Razeq Farraj, the NGO’s Finance and Administration director and who was indicted in October 2019 on four counts, including aiding an attempt to cause death in the terrorist attack on the Shnerb family that year and holding a position in a terrorist organization. According to the indictment, Farraj recruited for the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and knew about attacks carried out by the cell, as well as details of its weapons and explosives.

2nd from the R is Abdul Razeq Farraj, indicted in 2019 for aiding in the terrorist attack on the Shnerb family, killing a 17-year-old. On the far R is Ubai Aboudi, a recruiter for the terrorist group PFLP, who was sentenced to a year in prison in June 2020. pic.twitter.com/QalSniKAGr
— Lahav Harkov (@LahavHarkov) July 23, 2020

Some Black Leaders Supported Zionism Before Herzl Did (Daled Amos)

During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, a reporter asked Golda Meir about African leaders that were cutting off diplomatic ties with Israel under Arab pressure. The reporter claimed this proved that Israel's African policy and the aid given was a waste of time. Golda Meir disagreed:

Because what I did for Africa was not just a policy of enlightened self-interest. I did it for the benefit of the African peoples, and deep in their hearts they know this to be true. It was an expression of my deepest historic instincts as a Jew, and a demonstration of my most profound and cherished values as a Labor Zionist. [The Prime Ministers, by Yehuda Avner, p. 236]

Golda Meir was not the first Zionist to speak about helping Africa.

Herzl's novel, Altneuland, describes his vision of what Jewish Palestine would look like. At one point, one of the characters declares:

There is still one problem of racial misfortune unsolved. The depths of that problem, in all their horror, only a Jew can fathom. I mean the negro problem. Don't laugh, Mr. Kingscourt. Think of the hair-raising horrors of the slave trade. Human beings, because their skins are black, are stolen, carried off, and sold. Their descendants grow up in alien surroundings despised and hated because their skin is differently pigmented. I am not ashamed to say, though I be thought ridiculous, now that I have lived to see the restoration of the Jews, I should like to pave the way for the restoration of the Negroes. [Translated from the German by Dr. D. S. Blondheim, Federation of American Zionists, 1916, available online]

Herzl's desire for Blacks to be restored to their homeland was mutual.

In fact, Black support for the Jewish State predates Herzl.

In their book, Israel in the Black American Perspective, Robert G. Weisbord and Richard Kazarian start with a chapter on early Black support for the Zionist idea.

As early as the post-Civil War era, when Blacks were still too focused on their survival and that of their families to concern themselves with foreign affairs, there were still a few Black intellectuals and leaders who kept abreast of events overseas.

Some saw parallels between their own situation and that of the Jews -- and others saw Zionism and the return to the Jewish homeland as the paradigm for the transplanted Africans in the US.

Here is a summary of what the book describes about some of those leaders --

Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832-1912)

Blyden was born in St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, which had a significant Jewish population, and later immigrated to West Africa in 1851. He was an editor, a prolific writer of books and pamphlets, a linguist, a professor of classics, secretary of state of the newly established republic of Liberia, Liberian ambassador to Great Britain and president of Liberia College.

Edward Wilmot Blyden. Public Domain

As he describes in his book, The Jewish Question, while traveling in the Middle East in 1866, Blyden wanted to travel to "the original home of the Jews--to see Jerusalem and Mt. Zion, the joy of the whole earth." While in Jerusalem he went to the Western Wall.

Keep in mind that Theodor Herzl wasn't even born until 1860. Instead, this was the time of 'proto-Zionists' like Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, who wrote Derishat Ziyon (Seeking Zion), and Moses Hess, who wrote Rome and Jerusalem -- both published in 1862.

Weisbrod and Kazarian write:

In point of fact, Blyden in the 1860's and 1870's was much more of a Zionist than most Jews. He advocated Jewish settlement in Palestine, a phenomenon which, in his judgment would not have an adverse effect on the Arabs. Blyden reproved the sons of Abraham for remaining in the Diaspora and for not migrating to their ancient homeland, which the Ottoman Turks were misgoverning.

Towards the end of the 19th century, with the resurgence of antisemitism in Russia, France and Germany, that political Zionism came into its own with Herzl and his publication of The Jewish State in 1896. The First Zionist Congress followed in 1897.

Blyden's booklet, The Jewish Question, was published the following year:

Blyden was familiar with Herzl's Jewish State and predicted that it propounded ideas which "have given such an impetus to the real work of the Jews as will tell with enormous effect upon their future history." Blyden also commented on the powerful influence of the "tidal wave from Vienna--that inspiration almost Mosaic in its originality and in its tendency, which drew crowds of Israelites to Basle in August 1897...and again in 1898."

However, Blyden also thought that if the timing was not right, the Jewish State could be established elsewhere as well. He felt that because of the shared suffering of Jews and African Americans, they were specially qualified to be spiritual leaders in the world.

So he invited Jews to come to Africa --

Africa appeals to the Jew... to come with his scientific and other culture, gathered by his exile in many lands, and with his special spiritual endowments.

As it turned out, when the British offered Herzl land in Africa in 1903 for a state, that invitation was nearly accepted.

Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)

Booker T. Washington was such a celebrity during the latter part of his life that he was invited to have dinner with Theodore Roosevelt at the White House and to have tea with Queen Victoria.

He was born into slavery, but despite the hardships, he taught himself the alphabet, got an education and went on to found the Tuskegee Institute, which he headed for 35 years.

Booker T. Washington. public domain

From his childhood, Washington had an interest in Jews, based on his familiarity of Bible stories -- and drew parallels between the histories of Blacks and Jews. In a speech he delivered in 1905, Washington said:

In Russia there are one-half as many Jews as there are Negroes in this country and yet I feel sure that within a month more Jews have been persecuted and killed than the whole number of our people who have been lynched during the past forty years.

While Washington believed in thrift and hard work as key to Black equality, he also thought that progress could be achieved through racial solidarity -- just as it had helped Jews:

There is, perhaps, no race that has suffered so much, not so much in America as in some of the countries in Europe. But these people have clung together. They have had a certain amount of unity, pride and love of race.

Washington predicted success for Jews in the US, "a country where they were once despised and looked upon with scorn and derision" -- success that was achieved largely through dedication to education and enabled them to gain positions of power and preeminence.

He did not share the back-to-Africanism of Blyden, and did not see it as a solution to Black problems in the South. Similarly, while he was a friend of the Jews, Washington didn't see a Jewish State as much of a solution for Jews either. When asked if there was anything among Blacks that compared to the Zionist movement, Washington responded:

I think it is with the African pretty much as it is with the Jews, there is a good deal of talk about it, but nothing is done, there is certainly no sign of an exodus to Liberia.

Based on the lesser interest in Zionism in the US at the time, it is no wonder Washington was skeptical.

W.E.B Du Bois 1868-1963

Du Bois championed the cause of racial justice -- and of Zionism as well. He was born in Massachusetts and was educated at Fisk University in Nashville, at the University of Berlin and received a Ph.D from Harvard. He wrote historical treatises, sociological studies and essays on the important issues of the day. Du Bois was one of the founders of the NAACP.

He saw potential in the Balfour Declaration for a similar solution for Blacks. With the defeat of Germany in WWI, his dream was an independent free central African state carved out of German East Africa and the Belgian Congo.

It didn't happen.

W.E.B Du Bois Public Domain

He believed that such an African state would have a mutually beneficial relationship with Blacks around the world, similar to the Zionist view of a Jewish state. In 1919, Du Bois wrote an article in the NAACP magazine Crisis that

The African movement means to us what the Zionist movement must mean to the Jews, the centralization of race effort and the recognition of a racial fount. To help bear the burden of Africa does not mean any lessening of effort in our problems at home. Rather it means increased interest. For an ebullition of action and feeling that results in an amelioration of the lot of Africa tends to ameliorate the conditions of colored peoples throughout the world. And no man liveth unto himself.

Du Bois started a monthly magazine for Afro-African children around 1919 called The Brownie's Book. In it, he wrote about Zionism.

o In the first issue, he told his readers about the new Jewish state planned "'round about Jerusalem"

o Eight months later, he told them that a "great Zionist congress of the Jews is meeting in London"

o He also noted proposals to "tax the Jews all over the world for the support of the new Jewish government in Palestine"

o In January 1921, he wrote about the finished blueprints for a Hebrew university on the biblical Mount of Olives in Jerusalem
o In 1929, he wrote about the "murder of Jews by Arabs in Palestine."

In 1948, Du Bois published "A Case for the Jews." In it, he described Zionism as a question of

young and forward thinking Jews, bringing a new civilization into an old land and building up that land out of the ignorance, disease and poverty into which it had fallen, and by democratic methods to build a new and peculiarly fateful modern state.

In June 26, 1948 the NAACP adopted a resolution that

The valiant struggle of the people of Israel for independence serves as an inspiration to all persecuted people throughout the world. We havil the establishment of the new State of Israel and welcome it into the family of nations.'

Marcus Garvey 1887-1940

Born in Jamaica, Garvey was the founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). He wrote that Africa needed to be transformed into a

Negro Empire where every Black man, whether he was born in Africa or in the Western world, will have the opportunity to develop on his own lines under the protection of the most favorable democratic institutions.

His wife described his vision in a way similar to the Zionist goal of a Jewish state:

Garvey saw Africa as a nation to which the African peoples of the world could look for help and support, moral and physical when ill-treated or abused for being black.

Marcus Garvey. Public Domain

In 1920, Garvey told a UNIA meeting that after WWI,

A new spirit, a new courage, has come to us simultaneously as it came to other peoples of the world. It came to us at the same time it came to the Jew. When the Jew said 'We shall have Palestine!' the same sentiment came to us when we said' We shall have Africa!'

At the same time, the Jewish press was aware of what Garvey was doing and also saw the parallels between his pan-Africanism and Zionism. In the book, African Americans and Jews in the Twentieth Century, edited by V. P. Franklin, Hasia Diner notes in "Drawn Together By Self-Interest" that the Yiddish Press used the idioms of Jewish history to describe Marcus Garvey:

But Garvey was a complex -- and even contradictory -- figure when it came to Jews. There were statements he made that were antisemitic and when British Prime Minister Neville suggested in 1939 settling Jewish refugees in British Guiana, Garvey lashed out, claiming that British Guiana was a "Negro country" and criticized Zionism.

Walter White 1893-1955

In 1947, the UN voted on the partition of then-Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states. It was an opportunity to finally create a Jewish state -- but a two-thirds majority was necessary to make it happen.

Enter Walter White.

Walter White. Public Domain

Zionists approached White, urging him to persuade two Black nations, Haiti and Liberia, to reverse their announced opposition to partition and to vote for it instead.

He was opposed to the idea of 'segregating' Jews from Arabs and resented the pressure Zionists put on him. Nevertheless, according to his autobiography, he helped "because Palestine seemed the only haven anywhere in the world for nearly one million Jews of Europe."

When the votes were cast, Liberia, Haiti and the Philippines all voted for partition -- and those votes were critical in achieving the 33 to 13 vote for partition.

Black leaders like these make for a sharp contrast to the likes of Sharpton and Farrakhan.

The Bab al Rahma prayer room on the northeast section of the Temple Mount was closed by Israel in 2003 because it was used by Hamas as a terror base.

Last year the Palestinians forced it open and Israel had to close it again, and last week an Israeli court upheld that closure after Jerusalem police said it was again being used as a Hamas base.

Now, both Hamas and the Imam of Al-Aqsa Mosque Sheikh Ekrema Sabri are trying to incite violence by saying that Israel intends to turn the building into a synagogue.

Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, the preacher of Al-Aqsa Mosque, confirmed that the continuous Israeli campaign against the chapel "Bab Al-Rahma" at the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, comes as part of plans to seize the chapel and turn it into a synagogue.

"The occupation has plans and ambitions to convert the chapel of Bab al-Rahma into a synagogue, from which the occupation authorities proceed to control the eastern region, and then extend full sovereignty over the Al-Aqsa."

Sheikh Sabri warned that "The pressure generates the explosion, and the answer to the violations of the occupation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque will be in the popular mass anger," stressing that "the door of mercy is an integral part of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, and it is for Muslims only."

Of course there are no such plans. Hamas and Sabri are trying to start a religious war by making those claims.

In a fair world, though, the Bab al Rahma prayer room would be an excellent place for a synagogue on the Temple Mount.

I have been interested in the site for a while. To the immediate left of the structure are some old beams of wood, barely covered in canvas. (Here is a screenshot from a video I made last year.)

There is serious evidence that some of these beams could be from the First and Second Temple periods, and conceivably from the Temples themselves.

Matti Friedman wrote a fascinating article about them in 2013.

White nationalists and Louis Farrakhan following the same Jew-hating script

The Canadian Nationalist Party, a white nationalist group registered as a political party in Canada, has recently been de-platformed from YouTube and Facebook for its hate.

But it is still on Twitter.

One of its flyers sounds exactly like Louis Farrakhan and "Professor Griff."

All of Farrakhan’s tropes about Jews are on this far-right white nationalist party literature.

Jews aren’t really Jews. The Synagogue of Satan. Jews are parasites. Manipulating the world. Controlling the media.

Black racists and white racists have a lot in common.

Of course, the Canadian Nationalist Party is also anti-Zionist.

Meanwhile, Griff went on a webcast and described the books he read to learn about Jews: “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews” by the Nation of Islam, and “The International Jew” by Henry Ford – both classic Jew-hating propaganda, the second of which helped create the antisemitic atmosphere in Nazi Germany.

Losing the West (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

Western civilization is going down.

I predict a sudden drop in world population, a result of epidemics, hunger, environmental catastrophes, and perhaps wars, followed by a dark age that may last hundreds or thousands of years.

Although we have the technological tools to deal with epidemics and the ability to suppress the forces that drive us toward chaos, the West does not have the political intelligence or the will to take the appropriate actions.

The United States is going down. Regardless of the outcome of the coming election, the loser will not accept it. Ask yourself: if your candidate loses, will you say to yourself, “well, that’s democracy, you win some and you lose some – now let’s work together to solve the nation’s problems.” I didn’t think so.

So far the markets have been steady. Trouble will come when the big players, the aggressively amoral hedge funds, predict a decline and choose to profit from it. Their actions will turn a gentle decline into a crash that will destroy small businesses and wipe out individual savings. The combination of economic pain, a viral pandemic, and social uprisings – stimulated by psychological warfare waged by America’s external enemies using social media – will be greatly disruptive of the social order (they already are). America’s enemies will also take the opportunity to wage war via ordinary terrorism.

I expect serious infrastructure disruptions, food shortages, and endemic violence. I hope I’m wrong, but I think I’m right.

The elites are at the same time effete and viciously selfish; they will not take action except to secure themselves and their property. I expect some states to secede, and some areas to come under control of warlords, no-go zones to “official” authorities.

Trump has his strong points, but managing complex problems isn’t one of them, nor is developing and keeping a staff competent to do so. His Democratic opposition is increasingly influenced by the party’s left wing, which includes extremists that want to remake America as a socialist state, as well as the very well-financed Obama organization that will almost certainly dominate a Biden Administration if Trump loses.

I think the election will mark the inflection point at which the curve of civilizational decline turns sharply downward. When the US loses its dominant economic and military position, the effects will be felt everywhere. The crisis in the US will begin the sharp acceleration of the decline of the West. The dependence on highly-leveraged technology for basic needs will hasten the decline Think about the consequences if the Internet stops working (yes, I know it’s redundant. But someone needs to maintain the routers and other gear).

Europe is going down. Native Europeans aren’t having children. In order to keep their industries going, their leaders made a deal with the devil by accepting immigrants from Muslim countries who don’t share European values and don’t want to integrate, but rather to take over. There is already a breakdown of law and order as a result. Soon we will see the first oh-so-moderate Muslim prime ministers of Western European countries. After all, it would be islamophobic to vote against someone just because of their “religion.”

Even Israel may be going down. The “government” is incompetent, a collection of parasites feathering their nests at the people’s expense, while they mismanage the response to the Coronavirus pandemic in a way that wrecks the economy without stopping the spread of the virus. I expect that in a matter of weeks the intensive care facilities in the hospitals will be overloaded and people will start to die from lack of care. The few competent politicians – for example, Naftali Bennett – have been marginalized by our paranoid PM. His opposition, blinded by hatred, will do anything to remove him; but they have no coherent plan for what will happen without him. Nobody wants yet another election, but even if we had one, the chances of getting a capable government are small. Every day there are demonstrations in front of the PM’s residence in Jerusalem by the fanatic we-hate-Bibi people. Recently they have become violent when participants block roads and fight with the police.

The Israeli public has totally lost confidence in its “leaders,” and does not follow instructions. The nation and the army are in no condition to respond to an attack by our enemies.

Jew-haters will blame everything on the Jews, as has happened throughout history in bad times. There will certainly be pogroms and expulsions in Europe where the Muslim influence is strong enough; we’ve already seen European cities where it’s become impossible for Jews to live. I expect that Jew-hatred in the US, led by the Farrakhan types on one side and white extremists on the other, will increase. There will probably be areas in America that will no longer be safe for Jews.

How will the Jewish people as a whole fare during the dark age? It will depend on whether Israel can survive. It will not be easy to continue being a “villa in the jungle” when the jungle expands to take in most of the world. In my opinion, the chances are 50-50 or worse. And if there will be no Jewish state to serve as a refuge for those Jews who can no longer remain where there are, and which can maintain Jewish culture when the pressure for diaspora Jews to hide and assimilate becomes insuperable, then it’s doubtful that the Jewish people can survive another forced dispersal.

Survival depends on Israel getting her act together. We don’t have a lot room to fall back, either geographically or economically, so we can’t afford a disaster. And we can’t expect the USA to help us. It will have its own problems – or if the anti-Zionist Obama organization gets control, it may even act against us.

Right now, today, Israel needs to fix the problems in our governance, and our military. We don’t have a lot of time.

Someday, historians will trace the decline. From the “affluenza” of the post-WWII period, the establishment of flawed international institutions, the decline of religion in the West, the increasing bloat of parasitic governments, the flow of wealth to oil-producing countries and their use of this capital to restart the Muslim challenge to the now post-Christian West, the failure of Western educational systems at all levels, the rise of identity politics and the decline of meritocracy, and even the advent of television and now social media.

Whatever. There are plenty of reasons to go around. It is probably too late to do anything now but fasten seat belts and hold on.

07/22 Links Pt2: Twitter’s Colossal Fail: Star Of David Is Hate Speech; UK Labour apologizes, pays damages in antisemitism lawsuit; John Lewis: The Man Who Opposed Hate

From Ian:

Honest Reporting: Twitter’s Colossal Fail: Star Of David Is Hate Speech

#JewishPrivilege
A couple of weeks ago, #JewishPrivilege trended on Twitter. The antisemitic hashtag was reportedly triggered by white supremacist Twitter accounts, using the trope at a time when America is undergoing social unrest over issues of racism and systematic discrimination. The concerted effort pinned the hashtag within posts that raised classic conspiracy theories of Jews dominating and controlling the media, claims to deny the Holocaust, and accusations of Jews orchestrating recent demonstrations across the US.

While Twitter failed to act the hashtag was co-opted by Jews and allies attacking it. #JewishPrivilege ignited an online furore that emboldened many Jewish celebrities to share their experiences growing up as Jews. Instead of taking action, Twitter did nothing, saying that #JewishPrivilege did not breach its terms of service.

And Twitter’s unwillingness to combat antisemitism has global implications. The Islamic Republic of Iran regularly uses the platform to spread antisemitism, conspiracy theories, and incitement to violence.

Social Media: A Megaphone For Antisemitism
The growing problem of online antisemitism isn’t confined to Twitter. Social media giant YouTube still hasn’t totally de-platformed infamous antisemite Louis Farrakhan. On the Fourth of July, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan delivered a three-hour address on YouTube featuring a litany of antisemitic remarks. Farrakhan’s speech, with over 900,000 viewers on YouTube, was promoted by the rap artist Sean Combs to his 35 million Twitter followers.

While YouTube eventually removed Farrakhan’s address from its platform following pressure from HonestReporting, a petition directed at HonestReporting with the aim of reinstating Farrakhan’s video on YouTube was quickly created, distributed online, and gathered signatures.

Online Antisemitism: It Doesn’t Stay Online
When social media outlets are used to disseminate hatred, they enable bad actors to promote their lies. The good news is that Twitter and YouTube have occasionally deleted accounts that violated their policies against the promotion of violence or incitement to hatred. But all too often they seem to be playing catch up.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, there’s been a significant increase in antisemitic social media posts over the last few months. And the danger of not acknowledging the growth of online antisemitism is that it often doesn’t stay online. That’s why it’s crucial to develop a clear definition of what constitutes anti-Jewish hatred and intolerance.

In contrast, current hate speech terms on Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, and YouTube don’t address all the modern forms of antisemitism. And even when it’s reported, antisemitic content doesn’t always fall within these platforms’ broad definitions of hate speech.

As a result of this wishy washiness, known antisemites are using social media platforms to peddle their hate speech while couching it in the language of social justice.

The Man Who Opposed Hate

On Oct. 16, 1995, hundreds of thousands of African Americans traveled to Washington, D.C., for the Million Man March. Convoked by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, the event aimed to “convey to the world a vastly different picture of the Black male.” Arriving less than two weeks after O.J. Simpson was acquitted of double homicide, at a time when America’s racial gulf seemed wider than at any point since the heyday of Jim Crow, the Million Man March held the promise of being, in the words of Glenn Loury, a “great moment in American cultural politics.”

That the march was not such a moment owes entirely to the man who organized it. Farrakhan’s well-documented history of anti-Semitic, racist, sexist, and lunatic remarks, however, did not dissuade a long list of African American luminaries including Maya Angelou, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Reps. John Conyers and Charlie Rangel, and Rosa Parks from speaking under his aegis.

John Lewis was not among them. The Democratic congressman and civil rights icon, who died last week at the age of 80, could not “overlook past statements by Louis Farrakhan—and others associated with the Nation of Islam—which are divisive and bigoted.” While Lewis, writing in Newsweek, believed that the “goal of encouraging African American men to be responsible is sound,” the march was “fatally undermined by its chief sponsor.” He would therefore not attend the event, as it went “against what I have worked for—tolerance, inclusion, integration.”

This was not the first time Lewis deployed the moral authority he earned on the Edmund Pettus Bridge against the “most popular anti-Semite in America.” In 1993, a Nation of Islam leader named Khalid Abdul Muhammad delivered a speech accusing Jews of “sucking our blood on a daily and consistent basis” and bringing the Holocaust upon themselves. After three months of protest, Farrakhan held a news conference to address the controversy surrounding his lieutenant. “While I stand by the truths that he spoke,” Farrakhan hedged, “I must condemn in the strongest terms the manner in which those truths were represented.” Muhammad, he elaborated, was “brilliant, highly gifted, committed.” His “truths,” furthermore, derived from The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, a repulsive NOI tract alleging Jewish “control” over the international slave trade.

Farrakhan’s sly equivocation was sufficient for the NAACP, which announced that it was not only “satisfied” with his “condemnation” but “prepared to believe Minister Farrakhan’s statement that he is neither anti-Semitic nor racist.”

John Lewis was not satisfied. In fact, he was “surprised” that an organization with so storied a legacy of fighting bigotry as the NAACP would prioritize the avoidance of conflict with a powerful Black leader over the moral imperative of denouncing his unmitigated and undisguised hate. “You have to bring the filth from under the rug and out of the dark corners so we can deal with it,” Lewis stated.

HonestReporting: Julian Edelman of the Patriots and ESPN get it right on antisemitism

When NFL player Desean Jackson made antisemitic statements while speaking about the Black Lives Matter cause, four different ESPN anchors condemned him and made clear that antisemtism is no different than hatred against African Americans. New England Patriots player Julian Edelman went one step further in equating the two.

HonestReporting's Dov Lipman praises them and calls on all media outlets and movements for equality to do the same.

I grew up in post-war Germany, where a lot of people said the appeal of the Nazis came from the social service work (e.g. soup kitchens for the poor) that the Nazis organized... https://t.co/7B7DSPKE6A
— Dr. Petra Marquardt-Bigman (@WarpedMirrorPMB) July 21, 2020

Peniel Joseph, Wikipedia will have you know, is as a “leading voice on race issues.” The professor of history and public affairs at the University of Texas, weighing in on Farrakhan’s influence in an NPR podcast, described Farrakhan’s antisemitic remarks as “a blip,” as though such remarks are of no significance.

"And so I think that this is a blip. This is not the main story."

And despite stories like this, or perhaps even *because* of stories like this, the media will generally keep it a blip. pic.twitter.com/AoSL2vS3oF
— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) July 20, 2020

The purpose of the NPR interview, we are meant to understand, is a thorough exploration and reassessment of Farrakhan’s influence in light of recent horrific antisemitic remarks emanating from such celebrity Farrakhan followers as DeSean Jackson and Nick Cannon. Going forward, should celebrities like Chelsea Handler and Madonna continue to share Farrakhan’s videos on race? Is it okay for people like Jennifer Anniston and Jessica Chastain to like those posts? And are we allowed to have an affinity for some of Farrakhan’s views while overlooking the rest—the horrid antisemitism and the crazy conspiracy theories?

Framed more boldly, if Farrakhan’s message about race is right on, may we, as a society, ignore the man’s antisemitism? Can we gloss over his epithets, the things he has said, calling Jews termites and sexual deviants?

Peniel Joseph was brought onboard by the liberal folk at NPR for the express purpose of answering these questions with a resounding yes. Yes we can ignore the antisemitism. Yes we can embrace Farrakhan in spite of the fact that the Nation of Islam leader is neither reticent nor shy about his insane hatred for the Jewish people. Because Farrakhan, says Joseph, comes in two different flavors.

"And on the other hand, you have a version that is preaching at times anti-Semitism, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, numerology, just different theories that some Black leaders feel unbelievably uncomfortable with..."

"unbelievably uncomfortable with"?!https://t.co/1JvbKhP6KE pic.twitter.com/gQyGoopPcA
— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) July 20, 2020

That means we get to choose which Farrakhan to embrace. We don’t have to choose the “bad” Farrakhan who blames all the world’s ills on the “satanic Jews.” There’s also the “good” Farrakhan—the one who is fighting for “Black political self-determination.”

The NPR interview is of note because it employs a race expert to put its liberal imprimatur on an ugly antisemite. And this is done in a twisted and perverted manner. We are told to think a certain way: that Farrakhan’s antisemitism is okay because it is offset by other factors, as if such a thing were possible: as if antisemitism could be offset or trumped by other matters.

Joseph paints two distinct versions of Farrakhan to make him “kosher.” The NPR interview is the liberal stamp of approval on Farrakhan, an “out” for society at large to overlook Farrakhan’s monstrous antisemitism, because it’s black lives that matter—black lives that are liberal flavor of the month.

It is sad and tragic to see the way people fall in. The way they accept, without questioning, what they are told to think. And it is also frightening to see how easy it is to get people to turn a blind eye to the kind of antisemitism that gets Jews killed in the millions.

Antisemitism is a hatred based on the idea that Jews are subhuman. If Jews are vermin, why then, it is okay to murder them or sacrifice them on the altar of BLM. But first you have to get people to see them as nothing, as unimportant as stepping on a cockroach. Something to get out of the way, to get to what’s really important. The MAIN message.

Black lives matter. And Jewish ones do not.

Which is how we come to have Peniel Joseph, really NPR, telling liberals that they don’t have to be concerned about Farrakhan’s despicable Jew-hatred. That it’s just not important. And because the people want to believe Joseph, they will. Just as the Germans wanted to believe Hitler. And the liberal left will look the other way as antisemitism grows, just as the Germans looked away from the atrocities and continued to believe that it was all for a good cause. And the cancel culture that applies elsewhere, to other forms of xenophobia, won’t apply when it comes to hating Jews. Nick Cannon may be delayed in getting his show on Fox, but after a proper amount of reflection, he’s still going to get that show.

Because Jew hatred is somehow different. And in fact, it IS different. Because the important thing is Black Lives Matter. And if we step on some Jews to get there, so be it.

Thus we have Farrakhan made kosher for the masses with race expert Peniel as the “hechsher,” the stamp of rabbinic approval. Peniel’s ruling is clear: it’s okay to look the other way on the antisemitism, it’s okay for celebrities to embrace Farrakhan, for society to embrace Farrakhan, and overlook his appalling out-sized hatred for the Jewish people.

NPR, using Peniel as its mouthpiece, would like you to understand that Farrakhan’s main message s what’s important. Because it’s for black people. And when Farrakhan describes the Jewish people as sexual deviants or portrays them as Satan, this is only incidental to the real message of Farrakhan. That those no-good awful things he says about the Jews can be considered and rejected, but the man himself, and the things he says on race, should be embraced. And because Farrakhan’s antisemitism—his outright hatred for the Jewish people—is not Farrakhan’s main message, it should not be our takeaway.

Which does a great job of reinforcing the idea that it’s okay for Chelsea Handler, for instance, to post a Farrakhan video on race, that it’s equally okay for Jennifer Aniston and Jessica Chastain and a whole bunch of other celebrities to follow suit. Which is why we’re going to have to document it all as it happens. To be the voice of logic in a field of hate, and to say, “This is wrong.”

It’s the one thing we can do. The one thing we have to do. And we have to do it often and at length.

It’s just the way it is. The way it always has been when it comes to hating the Jews.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.